Students and employees were cleared out of their classrooms and offices while a bomb squad was dispatched to inspect the device, which consisted of a bottle with wires attached to it, said Maurice Luque, a spokesman for the city Fire-Rescue Department.

This article needs a picture.Seriously, a kid shows some talent and people assume he is a terrorist. No wonder we are falling behind.

Vampire_Blues:Students and employees were cleared out of their classrooms and offices while a bomb squad was dispatched to inspect the device, which consisted of a bottle with wires attached to it, said Maurice Luque, a spokesman for the city Fire-Rescue Department.

This article needs a picture.Seriously, a kid shows some talent and people assume he is a terrorist. No wonder we are falling behind.

A guy from CMU was detained and questioned at CVS because his home-made GPS unit had a battery pack.

That's right: in a neighborhood filled with high-tech students this white guy who was openly carrying a device had what was considered a suspicious object because it required portable electrical energy.

And the reason he was let go without further investigation? The object had a Windows CE logo on it.

thelordofcheese:A guy from CMU was detained and questioned at CVS because his home-made GPS unit had a battery pack.

That's right: in a neighborhood filled with high-tech students this white guy who was openly carrying a device had what was considered a suspicious object because it required portable electrical energy.

And the reason he was let go without further investigation? The object had a Windows CE logo on it.

You are safe, citizen. The government is watching.

That's why I have no cell phone nor portable GPS. There are too many ignorants out around lacking basic science and technology awareness.

A news report on the lottery comes on the TV. (``Down in front!'' yells Homer at SLH. SLH collapses.) Kent Brockman reports that every copy of Shirley Jackson's ``The Lottery'' has been checked out of the library. Nevermind that it has absolutely nothing to do with winning the lottery. Homer angrily tosses his copy into the fireplace.

Kent: But there's already one big winner: Our state school system, which gets fully half the profits from the library. Skinner: [talking with his teachers] Just think what we can buy with that money... History books that know how the Korean War came out. Math books that don't have that base six crap in them!And a state-of-the-art detention hall[holds up a scale model]where children are held in place with magnets. Teacher: [to no one in particular] Magnets. Always with the magnets...

The Pentagon recently released a report stating that the small number of students going into science and engineering fields constitues a grave security threat to the country. So... can we have the vice-principal who overreacted sent to Gitmo for endangering the future of the United States of America?

skinink:"Officials decided to call in the explosives team to look over the object - which an administrator had confiscated and taken into a principal's office - as a precaution."

Well thank heaven there was a person stupid enough brave enough to move a suspicious device.

To the principal's office. Seriously, if you're brave enough to move something that you really and truly believe is a hazard to the kids in your care, why put it in the principal's office as opposed to, I dunno, the parking lot?

eddyatwork:The kid has learned three lessons that are very important here.

1. The nail that stands tallest gets hammered down first.2. No matter how much you explain something to an administrator they'll never get it.3. Being intelligent is a punishment.

If the kid had made a crappy diorama none of this would have happened.

Yeah. A big THIS. At least, that has been my experience.

That's why I became an entropy-worshiping nihilist. I figured that the only way I could get along in this world without being accosted or reviled would be to out-doomsay the doomsayers.

So far it has worked. `Perhaps too well.

I tried the whole "Show off how smart I am" thing in middle school, and I was completely cured of it by high school, thanks to teachers and administrators who were threatened by my existence. Even in the adult world, I've learned that most people don't like someone who is noticeably intelligent; They prefer their peers, superiors, and/or underlings to be as dim as they are, and suffer the delusion that they themselves are the smartest monkey in their office, because they picked more fleas this week than anyone else.

From the referenced article: According to the Computer Research Association, computer science enrollment dropped 43 percent between 2003 and 2006.

How much of this is due to the dot-com bust?

What worries me more is the lack of engineering students. I saw on History Channel when they still had history a statement about how over half of the engineers in the US are over the age of 50. That means in less than 20 years we are going to have a major shortage.

Somehow, the kid in the article probably won't go into it if this crap keeps going on in schools.

Fear the Clam:To the principal's office. Seriously, if you're brave enough to move something that you really and truly believe is a hazard to the kids in your care, why put it in the principal's office as opposed to, I dunno, the parking lot?

Weaver95:All I know is that if I tried even half the stuff I did when I was a kid in this environment of fear and paranoia, i'd be in a jail cell until I was 24.

Hell, my diary would have landed me multiple felony terrorist charges because as a release and escape from the hell that was school I'd write creative entries about how I'd kill them all. It was fantasy.

The thing that is chilling to me today about schools is how they are training people to live in a prison mentality where all independent thought must be crushed instantly in the guise of safety and all spirit must be destroyed by meaningless rules that accomplish nothing.